Thursday, January 6, 2011

I feel all over the place, I don't know where to start, therefore nothing is being done. I don't like this feeling. I have so many little things and a few big things that I want/have to do, but I can't seem to focus and actually complete any of those items. You could say I feel overwhelmed.

A big part of my problem is my perfectionism. A perfect example of my perfectionism is that of my new sewing room- formally living room. I previously wrote about how my ex took the living room furniture leaving me with a room full of randomness. I hate randomness. It's hard to re-do a room if it has no designated function. Luckily my friend TJ suggested that I turn it into a sewing room. I really liked the idea and immediately started bringing my sewing supplies up the two floors from where it was previously housed in the chilly basement.

My Dad helped me carry up an eight-foot-long folding table which will serve as my sewing work space. My ironing board, boxes of fabric, organizational drawer cabinet, and of course sewing machine all also occupy this room. All this in addition to the stuff that was already in there, like my desk, coffee table, TV stand, and my ex's remaining saltwater reef tanks. I had my work cut out for me.

Before I began, the room looked something like this:

The desk was the only "completed" part of the room. Everything else was sort of pushed to the edges. I started arranging and rearranging sometime around 7:00 last night. I took this picture about 10:00:

At this point, I was still surprisingly upbeat. It was fun trying to figure out where everything would go, and when I was done I was going to have my cute little sewing room right there next to my bedroom. No more cold lonely basement for me! Then, around 11:00, things took a wrong turn...

I'm going to try and walk you through my thought process during all this, but I'm warning you now- we're about to get inside my head and it ain't pretty. Here goes:

OK. Desk is already set up and looking cute on the north wall and I want it to stay there, fish tanks are taking up half the west wall, so that leaves the east wall to put the sewing table. No problem. But wait, that is a shared wall with my sister's room, I hope she won't be annoyed by the sound of the machine through the wall. Better go check. (Did a test run of machine noise.) Nope, she said she can't hear it, we're good to go. Now I need to set up the ironing board. I want the ironing board to come off the table like an "L" on my right hand side like I had it in the basement. I'm left handed and it's the most comfortable place for me to have it, all I need to do is swivel my chair to the side and it's in the perfect spot. But, if I do that in this room, it blocks the door. I could just put it up when I need it and take it down when I don't, but I use it so much during a project to iron seam allowances that doing that would be a huge pain in the butt. No, better just to leave it up. If I put it on the other side it blocks the desk. Obviously the table needs to be on a different wall. The north wall, where the desk is now, That way it will be the focal point in the room. But I like the desk there. No, it's the only other good spot for it, I can deal with moving the desk. OK, table is on the north wall. It looks kind of nice there. Now back to to the ironing board. It can now go on my right side where I want it. But if I put it on that side, that means the desk has to go on the opposite side and there really isn't room over there. Maybe I could move it to the other side of the room and just get used to it being on my left? Sure. Let's do that. Hmmm. If I have it on that side the tray part where the iron sits is to my left, and that means the pointed end of the board is the end closest to the table, and that looks weird. Plus, it's harder to iron my work dresses that way. If I turn the table around, now the iron spot is on my right side, and I'd have to keep reaching across for it. No way. The ironing board has to be on the right. Now to deal with the desk. I like things centered, even, balanced, etc. I want the desk in the center of that wall. No problem. Wait-problem. There is an air vent that protrudes from the baseboard a couple inches keeping me from putting the desk where I want it. I can either center the desk and just have it pulled out away from the wall a few inches, or just have it off centered by about six inches and push it up against the wall. Nope, neither are to my liking. It will drive me nuts to do either. The desk has to go on the other side of the room. Which means the ironing board has to move again, back to the other side. We've been though this. Ugh!...

Anyone still there? I totally wouldn't blame you if you all just un-subscribed from my feed right now after having read that. I'm not kidding when I say this is only a small portion of my thought process last night. There were several other issues that came up, but if I went into further detail I'm afraid I'd make your eyes bleed. I also moved that desk back and forth across the room no less than five times. I finally gave up around 2:00 AM. I'm still not happy with it. I even got my sister involved as a fresh set of eyes, and she has concluded that I am a psychopath...

I've always been able to take take whatever furnishings and decor I have to work with and somehow bring the room together in a way where it seems as though it was meant to be that way. Everything belongs. I can't stand it when a space appears as though the things within it are only where they are because it's the only place they would fit. In this case, it's the truth. And it's driving me nuts. Here's what it looks like now- I know to you this will look just fine, but to me, it's still all wrong:

I know it's crazy to have spent that much time agonizing over something so trivial. I really can't help it. If I'm going to be spending a lot of time in there I want it to feel right, and it doesn't. Plus, this was only one example of how my perfectionism takes over. I do this kind of thing all the time with the most mundane of tasks and over-analyze them to the point I have a "freak-out". Somebody take pity and shoot me, please?

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comments:

i understand completely and know just how you feel. If i could see the room in person i might have been able to help you out but we are very far apart and that is not possible at least until this summer.